Astronomy Ambassador Summer School at ARCC, UTB June 10, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education, ICT, Physics.2 comments
I’m here in the Sci-fi looking Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC) within the Center for Gravitational Wave Astrophysics (CGWA) at University of Texas Brownsville. I’m surrounded by a keen if slightly nervous group of high school students from Texas and Puerto Rico who are about to embark on a three-week long Astronomy Ambassadors summer school. This is one of three summer schools, the others in computer science and mathematics, that the university is running over the next few weeks.
Students meet at 10 am each day for a subject-specific session that is then followed by a scientist from the university or elsewhere giving a lecture to the combined groups. Today’s talk will be about gamma-ray bursts. The afternoon session is a two-hour lab with a range of activities. I’m only here for the first four days as I fly home to Australia on Friday. Nonetheless I’m looking forward to working with the students on some introductory activities and giving Wednesday’s talk to the whole group about telescopes of the world.
Unfortunately I miss out on the camping trip next week to western Texas. There the students will construct their own Dobsonian telescope that they get to keep then use it under the dark skies of the region to observe the stars. They will also visit McDonald Observatory, home of the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberley Telescope and other telescopes.
When I arrived at ARCC late Friday afternoon they were busy mounting large, flat-screen LCD displays from the ceiling and walls. On Saturday afternoon there was a welcome and briefing for the five new undergraduates who have just been accepted as ARCC Scholars. They have a four-year program at UTB studying Physics and related subjects whilst working closely with scientists at the CGWA and using the ARCC to observe pulsars using the famous 300 m Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
On Sunday we welcomed the students and parents involved in the Astronomy Ambassadro program. They were able t observe an actual observing session at Arecibo conducted by UTB students using the ARCC as you can see below.
Sydney Observatory celebrates 150 years. May 29, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, ICT, Physics.1 comment so far
Sydney Observatory’s time ball was first dropped at 12 noon on 5 June 1858. To celebrate this the Observatory has a series of events over the next few weeks. A new flagstaff will be officially opened on the 7th. The Observatory plays a key role in communicating astronomy and science to the public and has a stunning location at atop The Rocks, overlooking the harbour and the bridge.
- Monday 2 June at 6:30 pm - A talk on the history of Sydney Observatory by Nick Lomb - “Rise, fall and rise again: the tale of Sydney Observatory”
- Thursday 5 June - media preview of the new Observing the weather exhibition, the reinstalled giant flagmast and the renovated Fort Phillip Signal Station
- Saturday 7 June, Sunday 8 June & Monday 9 June Open weekend with the anniversary speeches, the anniversary dropping of the time ball and the ceremonial raising of the flags on the Saturday morning
- Friday 13 June 6:30 pm - A talk by Fred Watson - “Why is Uranus upside down?” - followed by telescope viewing
- Saturday 14 June - seminar on the history of Australian meteorology - Target Theatre, Powerhouse Museum
- Sunday 15 June - seminar on the history of Australian astronomy - Target Theatre, Powerhouse Museum
- Friday 4 July and Saturday 5 July from 6 pm - the annual “Festival of the stars
The seminars on the 14th and 15th of June include a great range of speakers and cover a diverse range of topics including Aboriginal astronomy by Ray Norris from the ATNF and the history of The Dish at Parkes.
Thanks to Nick Lomb from Sydney Observatory for these details.
WorldWide Telescope released May 13, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education, ICT.1 comment so far
Microsoft Research have now released WorldWide Telescope.
I haven’t had a chance to use it yet as the system requirements are beyond my four-year old desktop PC at work and I don’t have Windows running on my Mac either. A pity as it certainly looks engaging and powerful from the visualisations provided on the website.
It appears that the developers have approached it very much as an educational tool. I’m impressed with the simple (Flash) homepage with the three sections: Telling stories, The visual experience, and Context. The download seems pretty hefty and 10 GB of hard disk space is recommended. For Windows PCs they suggest: 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance.
Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try it in the next few days. No doubt there will be lots of discussion on various sites. I’m interested in seeing how practicable it is is the average school.
Now, all I need is more time to play with this and Google Sky to get a better feel for them.
Will Mars be as big as the Moon? August 9, 2007
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education, ICT, Skepticism.add a comment
This question has become an occupational hazard for those of us working in astronomy education and public outreach. Each year in July and early August we receive emails from the public - some tentative, others skeptical, some just wanting to know. There are variations on the question but all ask whether Mars really will appear as big/large/bright/close as the Moon in the sky in late August.
How did this question arise?
It dates back to the opposition of Mars in August 2003. An opposition occurs when a planet outside the orbit of Earth (that is Mars and beyond) is opposite the Sun in the sky. From Earth the planet therefore is visible all night, reaching maximum elevation at midnight. More importantly for observers the planet is at its closest to Earth so also appears at its brightest. Due to the elliptical orbit of planets, some oppositions bring them closer to Earth than others. This is particularly the case with Mars as its orbit is lightly more elliptical than the other planets.
The email doing the rounds mentions August 27 but omits the year so it is easily recycled year after year. Rather than dismissing the email out of hand though, use it as a timely, useful exercise in critical thinking and investigation in the classroom. Don’t answer the student questions, get them to think how they can go about finding out if it is true, where Mars will be in the sky, how far away it will be and how large it will appear. This is a great Problem-Based-Learning exercise. It draws on several skills and blends reading with simulations, some ratios and mathematics and modelling.
Several sites have background on the hoax email and the misconceptions:
- ABC Science page on the Mars email
- Universe Today page on the topic
- Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy site (excellent coverage of many misconceptions and hoaxes)
- Snopes page
Free programs such as the open-source Stellarium are also a great way to let students explore what the sky will look like in late August.
Exploring this email could easily take up one or more lesson but will be time well spent in developing students’ questioning and thinking skills. Let me know if you try it.
What’s that in the sky? July 31, 2007
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At the moment there are numerous queries about large, bright lights in the evening sky. Such questions might be considered an occupational hazard when Venus is bright and high in the west but at least they are not as bad as questions as to whether Mars will be as big as the Moon in August!
Where possible and appropriate I take advantage of these inquiries to inform people as to where they can find out what is up in the sky themselves. There are several excellent websites that talk about what is up each month. Ian Musgrave from Astroblog produces a monthly report on his Southern Sky Watch website that is great for Australian observers and is linked from the ABC Science site. No doubt there are many more sites for northern hemisphere viewers.
I like to encourage people to get outside and look up. A star chart or planisphere is always handy for this though many people find them confusing to use at first. Skymaps.com produce excellent skycharts in northern and southern hemisphere editions each month. These are free downloadable PDFs that can be printed off in class sets and contain details on highlights for that month.
Planisphere is a free Windows program that students can use to produce a planisphere tailored for their latitude. They can print it out and construct their own planisphere to use at home or on a school camp.
Perhaps my all time favourite piece of astronomical software is Stellarium, a FREE open-source program.
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.
It has a lovely aesthetic and is available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux machines. The latest version (0.90) has recently been released. One of the strengths of Stellarium in an educational setting is the uncluttered interface. It is so simple to use that students can quickly start using it and exploring what if? and when is? scenarios very quickly. The price is right for school systems and it is a must-have for any science classroom or computer. I’ll write more about some educational examples using Stellarium later.
